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Devilled Scallops
1 quart scallops. 1/3 cup butter. 1/3 teaspoon made mustard 1 teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne 2/3 cup buttered cracker crumbs Clean scallops, drain, and heat to the boiling-point; drain again, and reserve liquor. Cream the butter, add mustard, salt, cayenne, two-thirds cup reserved liquor, and scallops chopped. Let stand one-half hour. Put in a baking-dish, cover with crumbs, and bake twenty minutes.
The page as printed has lost the head of its ingredient list, so the quantities of scallops and butter are missing; the method still reads clearly enough to follow. Assume about a pint of scallops (roughly 1 lb) and 1/4 cup butter, which is the proportion Farmer uses in her other creamed-and-crumbed shellfish dishes.
- Missing quantitiesOnly the seasonings, liquor and crumbs survive in this excerpt. Any figure for scallops or butter is an inference, not something the original states.
- "Made mustard"Prepared mustard from a jar, as opposed to dry mustard powder. A smooth yellow or Dijon-style mustard is a reasonable substitute; 1/3 teaspoon is a very small amount, and some cooks may prefer more.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Bake at 375F, hot enough to brown the crumbs in the twenty minutes specified without stewing the filling.
- Heating to the boiling pointThis is a blanch, not a boil. Bring the scallops just to the point where the liquid trembles, then drain at once and keep the liquor. Scallops that actually boil tighten into erasers, and they get a second cooking in the oven.
- The reserved liquorTwo-thirds cup is a generous yield; wet-packed or very fresh scallops give up more liquid, dry-packed scallops often much less. Make up any shortfall with a little milk or clam juice rather than water, which dilutes the flavor.
- The half-hour standThe recipe gives no reason for it; presumably it lets the chopped scallops take up the seasoned butter and liquor before baking.
- Buttered cracker crumbsCrushed soda crackers or saltines tossed with melted butter, about 2 tablespoons butter to 1/2 cup crumbs. Panko works but browns faster; check at fifteen minutes.
- YieldCannot be fixed from the text, since the scallop quantity is missing. On the assumed pint, perhaps four small portions, or six in individual ramekins, which would need correspondingly less time in the oven.
"Devilled" in nineteenth-century American and English cookery meant sharply seasoned with mustard and cayenne, a usage that goes back to the eighteenth century and covered everything from kidneys to biscuits to crab. Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, first published in 1896, gives a technique that follows the standard scalloped-shellfish formula of the period: blanch, chop, bind with seasoned butter and the reserved cooking liquor, cover with buttered cracker crumbs, brown. Boston had ready access to sea scallops from the New England fleet, and cracker crumbs are often said to be a New England touch, reflecting kitchens where soda crackers were a staple pantry item long before commercial breadcrumbs.